Advantageous lighting of items for purposes of photography or display is a matter of great importance in a number of commercial and other fields. Items improperly illuminated are ascribed considerably less value than items advantageously illuminated. Because of this well-known fact, a significant investment is made in a wide variety of lighting and illumination devices.
While there have long been many diffused lighting or “soft light” devices, particularly those used in the fields of photography and television production, prior devices tend to be rather complex in having multiple parts and systems, tend to require a high level of expertise for proper and effective use, and/or often fall short of achieving the most advantageous lighting for whatever item is being photographed or displayed.
More specifically, many prior devices address the illumination of a subject on a relatively two-dimensional basis, usually from the front and sides of the subject to be photographed. “Soft,” or diffused lighting can be created with various lighting instruments specifically designed to generate such light, or with instruments so equipped with any of a number of types of diffusion filters and/or employment of reflective surfaces as to illuminate the subject with a soft, relatively shadow-free light, or with enclosures housing the photographic subject, that either diffuse outside lighting through filtration, or reflect internally-mounted lighting within a white-colored chamber or tent.
Occasionally, it is incumbent upon a photographer or video lighting director to provide lighting from directly beneath a subject, and this is usually attained by placing the object on a self-contained “light table” or a larger translucent surface under which upward-aimed lighting instruments (usually referred to as “uplights”) are placed, and the desired effect may be obtained. However, this is most often a bulky, complex and costly procedure requiring levels of lighting and construction expertise not found among many studio technicians or lighting directors.
A third staging and lighting technique often used is the use of a “coved background,” in which the floor or display surface are joined smoothly with the vertical wall or background behind the subject by means of a curved transition surface, so no line, or “horizon” between them is visible. Many devices have also been built to address this seamless “infinity background.” From tabletop-sized units to studio-length “coved” walls large enough for cars to be parked before them for display, they may be found with relative ease. These “coved” devices are all illuminated from the front, sides and above by lighting instruments placed near the angle of the camera (“key” lights), and at various locations around the subject so as to create fewer shadows, and/or minimize shadows created by other lamps. Every light used creates its own shadow to be corrected or hidden, and with more lighting instruments, there are more shadows, so creating such a display for photography or television can be a daunting task, again requiring equipment, space, experience and expertise.
When employing two or more of the above display and lighting techniques simultaneously, for example, while using a translucent up-lit staging surface beneath the photographic subject in conjunction with a front-illuminated coved background, it is difficult or impossible to achieve the smooth and effective combination necessary to create the desired “infinity effect.” Any variables introduced create more complications, requiring yet more equipment and expertise.
There is prior art regarding to inventions which address one or more of these photographic scenarios, but usually addressing only one at a time, and in a format that allows little or no flexibility.
One of the closest-related references would be that of U.S. Pat. No. 3,643,085 (Durand). This device uses a coved, translucent display and background surfaces to minimize or eliminate an apparent “horizon line” between the horizontal and vertical surfaces. Most significantly, this appliance uses only fixed, internal lighting sources beneath and behind the display surface, of either florescent or incandescent types, with no means to vary the distance, brightness, focus, angles or even color of the background lighting, particularly in the original “preferred embodiment” of the device, which uses only florescent tubes as a light source.
In fact, in the Durand patent, the only suggestion for varying the color of the background is to affix colored paper to the display surface, behind the subject of the photograph. This would both require previously unneeded back-lighting, side-lighting instruments and filters to achieve the desired diffused-lighting effect thus lost by eliminating the light-box, as well as eliminate the ability to light from underneath—the original stated purpose of the device in the first place.